Liberia's First Surf Competition

Alfred Lomax, pictured above with runner up Keith Chapman, won Liberia's inaugural surf competition this past Saturday by doing what he does best: shralping the lefts of Robertsport.


Despite not being the biggest fan of the competitive wing of surfing, it was great to see most of Liberia's small surf community out together for a weekend in our favourite surf town. Props to Nate and Elie of Robertsport Community Works (and their sponsors) for organizing, and being serious troopers for actually making it to the competition while battling an unhealthy mix of typhoid AND malaria.

Next step: teaching Alfred and Ben to go right!

Below, some shots of Liberia's top 3 surfers in the heats: Ben McCrumada, Alfred Lomax and Peter Swen.


Ben powering out a massive cutback in the semi's


Alfred hitting the lip in the finals against Keith


Peter floating off an insider in his semi final

Boorrrrrrinnng...

The above image sums up my day pretty well yesterday. Despite declaring yet another holiday to encourage people to vote, voter turnout in the run-off seemed even lower than the 20.4% that were said to have turned out for the first round of voting in Montserrado county's senatorial by-election. (That's the county Monrovia is in)

Most people seemed pretty ambivalent, and for good reason: Liberian senators - like Senators in most places - do little to inspire real confidence in voters that they will actually bring tangible change. Talking to people, there seems little evidence that people feel they have anything to lose or gain by having one party versus another in a senatorial seat. While I like voting, I also can't blame them.

Negotiating motorbikes through the potholed mazes of Monrovia's suburbs to the various polling stations, the resounding sentiment was that any real change would be negligible. To me, that seems fairly accurate, and understandable; though critics continue to decry Monrovians for failing to turn up to the polls.

Although the lack of excitement, passion and interesting stories of this day was certainly not worth the utter exhaustion that would later consume me, I did find this sign taped to a wall, and for a split second, everything was alright.

Liberia T-Shirts - My Articles

So, in staying with the vein of trying to share articles that I wrote, here is one from Vice on all the kids wearing used T-shirts, with accompanying photo essay. In Liberia, you will likely only see the 4 t-shirts with the article. But, on decent internet, there is apparently a full photo essay that pops up by me and my friend Andy Capper of some of our favourites.

Link here to the article, or here's a little chunk:

Some new clothes do make it into the country. But outside the cheap Chinese kitsch sold in the potholed and rubbish-strewn Waterside Market, most new clothing is far outside the affordability of the average Liberian; as many as 60 percent of the country are said to live on a dollar a day.

So, demand creates a different supply chain where low cost is the trump. Donations from the US and the wholesale purchase of massive amounts of used clothes fill hundreds of sea cans with clothing no longer wanted by Americans. These end up all over Africa, but Monrovia—the capital city of a country built by freed slaves of the 19th century in the image of the United States—receives a high proportion of used American garb.

Gettin' By- Fish Marketer

This post is part of a larger series called 'Gettin By', that looks at the informal sector of Liberia in relation to the purported statistic that 85% of Liberians are unemployed. Read this for a better explanation, to see all Gettin' By posts click here or simply read on.

Profession: Fish Marketer

Location: Local markets, head-carried trays plying the streets

How it works: If you ask a Liberian, where fish comes from, they will give you a pretty accurate answer: the sea. This, of course, is true, but its not the whole truth. Contrary to common logic that stems from Liberia's vast coastline, not that much of the fish consumed in Monrovia actually comes from that sea, ie the one you look at every day.

Lebanese merchants have frozen fish warehouses on the outskirts of town that do large-scale imports of fish from trawlers. I can't say for sure, but the people I have asked say that these are primarily Chinese and European (the Italian-Liberian Fish Company in Vai Town stands testament to the latter theory).

Crazy, right?

In short, yes. But in other ways, not. Liberian fisherman fish exclusively from small dugout canoes that have very little capacity in terms of catch. While they can pull in fish that seem impossibly big for the boats, they can't pull in many of these per load.

That's why you see the Chinese fishing trawlers off Liberia's coast every frickin' day and night: because they can.

But I digress. This is about people in Monrovia, such as the woman above, selling small-small fish. These are caught by Liberians and sold by Liberians; rare in a supply chain dominated by foreigners.

These fish are caught by hand nets dropped off for a few hours at a time, or left overnight. Small nets that have been repaired a hundred times are what catch the fish, from boats hollowed with axes over two weeks. This mainly happens in small towns and villages, but West Point - Monrovia's largest slum, and originally a fishing community - brings in tons of these 'small-small's' every day.

Fish are smoked immediately upon arriving on shore wherever they are caught (91% humidity and oppressive heat are not renowned ways of keeping fish) , usually by the wives or families of the men bringing them. In my experience, these fish are packed tightly into rice bags, and sent off on the back of moto taxis for a few LD on top of the regular moto fees. Likely, from further towns, there is a taxi or truck component added in to get all the way to the streets of Monrovia and its surrounding suburbs.

Once there, the fish price varies with the imperceptible differences in fish size notable only to the trained eye. The fish in the above shots were generally listed at 10 LD (about US 15 - 20 cents, with the rising exchange rate), but are grouped into 'price piles' (just came up with that; not a real term) of 20, 30 and 50 LD (US 30 - 80 cents).

I asked a woman behind me in this picture how much the rice bag of fish she caught was. She said US $ 20, but it was a massive, split open bag, so hard to tell what that meant. The woman in this picture laughed when I asked if she would sell the whole table of fish, but declined to explain what the laugh meant. She did say she will make 200 - 300 LD (US $ 3 - 5) that day, after everything, which includes the tasty pepper powder they are served with.

On the streets, a few vendors said they buy a tray for 400 LD (US $ 6), and hope to flip it for a 550 - 600 over a few hours of walking the street with the tray on their head - a profit of about US $ 2.50 - 3.

Variables: The fish packs a powerful stench that can be overpowering when nausea pays a visit; people love to bitch about fish prices relative to their size (yes, more than average)

Point of Comparison: A cup of rice costs 20 LD, or about 30 cents - one-third a day's wages for the woman shown above.

my friend john, a village chief, with his largest catch that day. I helped pull 'er in.

Weah Beginnings

Normally when spoken of, talk is either about where George Weah is headed politically (namely, if he will be Liberia's next president) or the highlights of his illustrious football career. On the edge of Doe Community in Clara Town, this is the pitch he learned to play on.

Donna Please Reply

Hey Donna who wrote two comments on the "Not Gettin' By" post from two weeks back. If you are who you claim to be, I would love if you wrote a guest post showing another side of that story. My contacts are in my profile.

thanks

Stockholm Syndrome: "You Can Put the Blame On Me"

The first time I heard of Akon, I was deeply embedded in the insanity of a very swampy forest in very northern Canada. Hilkat-reooww and Matty P sang me the lyrics of his debut tune, 'Smack That', and I was so angry that I couldn't stop laughing:

I feel you creepin' I can see it from my shadow
Wanna jump up in my Lamborghini Gallardo
Maybe go to my place and just kick it like Tae-Bo
And possibly bend ya over
Look back and watch me smack that

Now, years later, I not only know all the words to Smack That, but I feel fairly safe to say that "I celebrate his entire catalog." 'Sorry Blame it on Me', 'Nobody Wanna See Us' and 'Beautiful' are always sung with joy.

Or so I think...

---

When I first got to Liberia, one year ago, the music made me ancy to the point of not wanting to go out. The size of the playlist for the whole country is about 40 songs, plus every song Akon ever made, (which is think is roughly the same number) and there has been little turnover in the last year. And its that super annoying pop, written by musical formulas to make people sing along even if they don't really like it.

Fact: If you spend an hour or two walking the streets, you will hear the same song twice, if not 5 times. Fact: If you listen to a radio station for an hour, same deal. Literally unbelievable. And yet.

With the exception of a bit of Hi-Life from Ghana, some Nigerian tunes and a smattering of stuff from the neighbours, its generally modern American pop at its 'finest' - meaning stuff I abhorred even as a child, but with increasingly more virulence as a youth and adult.

For months, I felt oppressed, smothered, captured, trapped by these highly limited options in aural enjoyment, contrary to my vast musical interests. I hated it. Vigourously.

Subtly, imperceptibly, my internal rage drifted to muted acceptability, then finally to my current state, which I hesitate to define as love.

This transformation brought confusion when I finally reflected on this. I opened up to an expat friend, who I also noticed mouthing along to every word:

"Dude, I think I, like, love Akon."

"Dude, I know"

I felt a bit better. Not until months later - and several answer-seeking conversations - did I come across a genius of a self-made psychologist, Ms. Natasha. She succinctly diagnosed me: "You have Stockholm Syndrome, from music."

I had fallen for the captors of my musical mind. I had grown to not only accept, but love that which I hated. Even now that I know, L'il Wayne is playing from a music booth outside, and I continue to sing along. Understanding why is, apparently, only half the battle.

Sean 'MacAkon's' seminal article on the subject classified the affliction as Musical Stockholm Syndrome (MSS) - the first of the literature to define it as such. Numerous responses gleaned from his comments section verify the ubiquity of the problem in the expat community. He claims that you can be cured. Growing evidence from my own life suggests otherwise, as attempts by friends to acquaint me with new music - even stuff I objectively know I should enjoy - have largely failed to resonate.

I just keep thinking, 'it ahl-riigh, but it nah be Akon'

Predictably, I get a lot of flack for this. This is fully justified: I would make fun of me too. Especially when its found out that I can go front-to-back on other pop 'classics' such as "Put Your Number in My Phone", "If I Was a Boy" and my personal favourite, "Out of The Club":

man: Oh baby let me take you out of this club
I wanna be with you
(heyyyy-ohhhhh)
woman: Oh baby come and take me out of this club
I'll make your dreams come true
(heyyyy-ohhhh)

In my heart, I know its objectively wrong to love this music. And yet...

(Footnote: Due to a bit of confusion, I added a hyperlink above to Wikipedia's article "Stockholm Syndrome". This is the most useful quote: "One theory to explain the Stockholm syndrome is cognitive dissonance. Specifically, people don't like being unhappy for long periods of time, but when people are kidnapped for a long period of time, they will be unhappy for that time, unless they come to love their captors. Thus, to resolve the cognitive dissonance, the victim may begin to identify with the captors.)

'nuff said

Go Interweb! And Mercenaries...

Yesterday - about a week and several attempts after the post went up - I finally 'watched' my own Analog Blogger clip (posted below or here). That is to say me and Glenna laboured through 30 sec chunks of choppy footage to piece together the 4 minute slot at what must be the fastest interwebbing around.

A perfect metaphor, considering the subject matter.

I am still thinking of calling in the pigeons to solve lingering internet woes.

Also courtesy of hanging out with Glenna yesterday, I learned one of my personal fascinations (not to be confused with hero), Simon Mann and his band of mercenaries were freed yesterday from 'living hell', after around 5 years of incarceration (though only 14 months in E.G.) following allegations of trying to overthrow Equatorial Guinea's government.

Imagine hearing this before being extradited (from Daily Mail article above):

According to sources inside Equatorial Guinea, the President has promised his henchmen that once Mann, a close friend of Sir Mark Thatcher, is extradited to Black Beach, he will be paraded in triumph to his palace in the old port of Malabo to be sodomised personally by the President before being skinned alive.

Such taunts are typical of a man who reportedly thinks nothing of torturing and executing his political opponents once they have reached the jail.

One political opponent, Pedro Motu Mamiaga, is said to have had his liver removed - which the President then ate.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-455635/True-hell-earth-Simon-Mann-faces-imprisonment-cruellest-jail-planet.html#ixzz0Vu8qPuU3

"Inconceivable..."